Later Career
Buckley participated in a live and very heated debate on ABC following the airing of The Day After, a 1983 made-for-television film about the effects of nuclear war. The debate panel included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and prominent scientist and author Carl Sagan. Sagan argued against nuclear proliferation, while Buckley, a staunch anti-communist, promoted the concept of nuclear deterrence. During the debate, Sagan discussed the concept of nuclear winter and made an analogy comparing the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union to two sworn enemies standing waist-deep in gasoline, one with 9,000 matches, the other with 7,000.
In 1988 Buckley was instrumental in the defeat of liberal Republican Senator Lowell Weicker. Buckley organized a committee to campaign against Weicker and endorsed his Democratic opponent, Connecticut Attorney General Joseph Lieberman.
In 1991, Buckley received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush. Upon turning 65 in 1990, he retired from the day-to-day running of the National Review and relinquished his controlling shares of National Review in June 2004 to a pre-selected board of trustees. The following month he published the memoir Miles Gone By. Buckley continued to write his syndicated newspaper column, as well as opinion pieces for National Review magazine and National Review Online. He remained the ultimate source of authority at the magazine and also conducted lectures, granted occasional radio interviews and made guest appearances on national television news programs.
Read more about this topic: William F. Buckley, Jr.
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